Growth-restricting deal earns Stockton a rare spot among green cities

Monday

Mar 16, 2009 at 12:01 AM

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK - It was before the bar opened at the Local Government Commission's 18th annual conference for local elected officials, and Stockton City Manager Gordon Palmer and City Councilwoman Susan Eggman were addressing an audience interested in making cities more compact, walkable and green.

David Siders

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK - It was before the bar opened at the Local Government Commission's 18th annual conference for local elected officials, and Stockton City Manager Gordon Palmer and City Councilwoman Susan Eggman were addressing an audience interested in making cities more compact, walkable and green.

The conference, in Yosemite National Park, was one Stockton had not attended in years.

"If anyone knows Stockton, you know that we have a little bit of a problem with sprawl," Eggman said.

The Local Government Commission, a nonprofit group in Sacramento, had invited Eggman and Palmer to Yosemite Lodge to talk about Stockton's growth-restricting deal last year with state Attorney General Jerry Brown and the Sierra Club over Stockton's General Plan.

Their presentation followed a "Boxed Lunch and Hiking Break" and came before dinner and an evening session, "Transitioning to a Green Economy."

The PowerPoint started with what Eggman called "BAG - Before the Attorney General." Even before the General Plan settlement, she said, Stockton was concerned about the environment.

In January 2008, the city promised to measure and reduce its carbon footprint, and it became the first Central Valley city to require that future municipal buildings meet strict standards for green building and design. Popular Science magazine rated Stockton No. 49 on its list of the nation's 50 greenest cities.

But praise from environmentalists was mild in comparison to their criticism of the city's General Plan, which was adopted in 2007 and called for Stockton's population to about double by 2035, mostly in subdivisions at the city limits.

The Sierra Club sued the city, claiming the plan blessed sprawl, and Brown threatened to join the club in court.

Palmer said that in his initial meeting with Brown, "Jerry lays the map down on the table and says, 'Your map is bad. Your plan is bad.' "

There were about 65 people in the audience, and many of them laughed.

In settling with the Sierra Club and Brown, Stockton agreed to consider measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the impact of development on the environment.

"You're not at the bottom of the barrel anymore," said Judy Corbett, executive director of the Local Government Commission. "That's what really tickled me, to see Stockton stepping up front. That's just too cool for words."

The PowerPoint ended with Eggman describing a campaign by developer A.G. Spanos Cos. to force a referendum on the General Plan settlement.

Before abandoning its campaign in October, one of Spanos Cos.' objections to the settlement was the cost of implementing green building standards and other deal points.

The Building Industry Association of the Delta's John Beckman said he is concerned about that, too.

"All of these principles that people are putting in place, these mandates, drive up the cost of housing so much that by the time you build a house, the guy who lives in the Central Valley can't afford to buy your house for what it cost you to build it," he said.

Such standards might be appropriate in Marin County, where people can afford them, Beckman said. Stockton, he said, cannot.

Two speakers followed Eggman and Palmer, and then the cash bar opened.

Someone brought a glass of wine to Dominic Farinha, an Alameda County planner and a Patterson city councilman.

Farinha said Stockton's initial reliance on "the standard way of doing things" is how it "kind of got into trouble" with the General Plan.

But for the city's negotiation of a settlement and withstanding pressure to abandon it, he said, "They were able to rise from the ashes and become a model."

Contact reporter David Siders at (209) 943-8580 or dsiders @recordnet.com.